Benice / Yunka Publishing (ePub)

My children are going to experience a very different life to mine, and that both worries and inspires me. My wife and I are immigrants to the US, raising a multicultural family in our new home without the immediate presence of the extended family so vital to my own upbringing.

I grew up in a huge family, and I cherish my childhood memories of playing with my cousins, watching our favorite soccer team with my uncle, and defending my brother in street fights. My wife, on the other hand, had only one sister and her mother.

Our kids are experiencing very different childhoods, and while this is the life we hoped to provide for them, we also wanted them to understand the life experiences that brought our family to this point. My greatest challenge, or perhaps fear, is to prepare them for a world without their extended family close by. While my wife's concern is more raw as she remembers raising her sister alone after their mother left them when she was just twelve.

The start of my journey as a writer is similar to that of other parent-authors. I loved to tell stories to our son and daughter. I would tell them a story almost every night. I pulled events from my childhood, fascinating a new generation with tales of my brother, sisters, uncles, cousins, and hometown that always focused on the importance of family and friendship. It took me a while, but after writing Benice I realized that I was subconsciously using bedtime stories to compensate for the lack of family members in our kids' lives. I wanted my kids to know that they will be okay on their own, as long as they have love and friendship in their lives.

To that end, my stories also included our longtime family friends and their kids. We are lucky enough to have a tight-knit group of friends from varied cultures and backgrounds, and our kids have all grown up together. Part of that growing up was a period where the demand for stories lessened, followed by a growing insistence that I write my old stories

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